Holy Water

Trickle how the water comes.
Softly how those moments numb.
That drip of more, that addict within.
Stalls the change as reduction begins.
A thought, so sharp, it cuts my soul.
And leaves a bleeding anxious hole.
Stuff it up with sterile sympathy.
Your knee jerk blanket atrophy.
Born from your most humble place.
Yet rests uneasy in this space.
That trickle of love begins to vanish.
You dab my lips with bitter anguish.
And pull on strings that dangle there.
Beneath the tears, beneath the prayers.
Though within me roars the unfair state.
Of caught between this shifting hate.
The tectonic rasps of that indifference.
Reduces this voice to insignificance.
So I lick the drops upon the floor.
Savouring each and those before.
Hoping the flood will come again.
And wash hope through me like heroin.

18/04/2024 by Mark Ryan Categories: holy, love, waterTags: divine, flood, holy, hope, love, poem, Poetry, relationship, water, weather 3 Comments

Noticeable absence

Dark blue and imageless.
Mountainous and blue, like a wounded animal.
Caught in midwinter.
Holding on to nothing.
As the world pulls on and on.
Unspooling all that was before.
Yearning to fly, with tar on the wings.
Stones in my stomach.
A healing creature.
Trapped in feathers and down.
We lick the absence of ghosts.
Who knew enough not to linger.
Tired, from holding on to hollowness.
I’m still here.

18/03/202418/03/2024 by Mark Ryan Categories: animals, lonely, sadTags: animals, blue, creature, ghosts, grief, lonely, mountain, poem, Poetry, sad, sadness, trapped 4 Comments

OVERLY CONDITIONAL

Snowing in this heart again.
On the verge of emotionally dependent.
Trying not to gasp, or suck the bleeding air.
Eliminate or supplicate.
Little pills of love I struggle to swallow.
Bruised by this circumstance.
And hardened by this history.
Gasping once more.
You offer precious oxygen.
Up here, where the air is razor thin.
Heady, with thoughts of us.
Talk more of commitment.
Speak only of forever.
I puncture holes in the heart.
So the love can escape.
A little bit of ballast.
Some tiny space for me.

29/02/2024 by Mark Ryan Categories: love, poison, tomorrowTags: air, breathing, commit, commitment, emotional, forever, heart, history, love, pills, poison, soulmate, tomorrow, toxic 6 Comments

Setting fire to the sun

Eclipsed once more by the absence.
An illuminating vision expected in confident appearance.
The shape of ghosts.
The sound of nothing.
Pulled and plummeted by the gravity of grief which once was abandoned.
Like truth from a liar, it surprises then diminishes.
It’s the truth to know which bone to break, which leg to chew.
What pound of flesh must answer to.
That greater god, that watchful eye.
Orbiting Saturn as I look to loose this home.
This hurt.
Peal a psalm from my face, and see the holy terror.
That staring into loss, like staring at the sun.
Pointless yet devotional.
Beyond any understanding.
Out of habit, out of desperation.
Slash the skin, spill the solar system from within.
Somewhere, out there to find you.
Casting out tear-stained ropes.
To rescue the lost.

13/02/2024 by Mark Ryan Categories: holy, space, sunTags: god, grief, holy, hurt, looking, loss, poem, Poetry, rescue, satrun, saved, solar, space, sun, system, writing 5 Comments

Calendar of ghosts

The Drowning world glistens.
Trapped in tears.
It smears its salty view across my memory still.
But a year ago, humming as if only a day away.
The pillars of life crumbled.
I drowned a wicked death.
Wrapped in sympathy and synergetic sadness.
Cough once to stay alive.
Cough once more to live through.
I pulled the seaweed and the sorrow from my lungs.
But watched as you slipped into the deep.
Now the days have peeled away.
And the earth danced around the sun.
A ballet with solar steps and remembrance.
Reducing me now, here to this cosmic tear.
Keeping all that I remember, and all that I forgot.
Holding your ghost.
Like holding onto the sea in space.

25/01/2024 by Mark Ryan Categories: grey, loss, sadnessTags: calendar, days, earth, ghosts, grief, loss, memory, poem, Poetry, rememberance, sad, sadness, sea, solar, sun 6 Comments

A LONELINESS OF LOVE

Walking the world in cotton wool eyes.
Your skin in mine, pulling and pushing.
All I want to be is home.
Now walls are filled, yet memories bare.
Photographs peel and scream happiness.
Yet this house is silent.
The flowers call, placing a spell upon us.
Out of the woods, a deer upon a beach.
Optimistic voices signalling no more rain.
But a feeling murmurs.
A tempesteral undercurrent.
I’m a killer whale trapped in your wave.
Calling out for deeper waters.
As the green turns to blue.
A call goes out, with deeper vibrations.
No sound, but the wind.

10/01/202410/01/2024 by Mark Ryan Categories: beach, lonely, loveTags: eyes, hurt, joy, killer whale, loev, lonely, memories, photographs, poem, Poetry, storm, wander, waves 8 Comments

Esoteric Tears

Pealing away petals of skin.
Defiant bone deep within.
I architected survival patterns.
Circling hope like rings of Saturn.
Finding light in the darkest place.
By God I’m here, from her thine grace.
A rock pulled from that huge mountain.
Plumbed my limitations to reach that fountain.
A well inside in which to swim.
My own resource to bathe within.
Once breathing beneath horrific waves.
Which broke my ego and silenced graves.
Unearthed this self despite such bleakness.
I found strength within my weakness.

03/01/202403/01/2024 by Mark Ryan Categories: god, sea, strengthTags: defiane, god, mindful, poem, Poetry, self, strength, survival, tears, water, waves 2 Comments

INEXTINGUISHABLE PROMISE

The quiet of before.
Echoes like a shell
Inside, each petal of pride wilts then blooms.
A joy in the dew.
A prison turns to blanket.
Comfort comes with each tightening.
A love and safety, tied around me like Christmas lights.
What sparkles within is brighter.
I burnt that tree before, I inhaled the ashes.
That lonely figure in a forest of despair.
Winter comes and covers all with blank pages.
Where I scratch out a new ending in charcoal and hope.

22/12/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: christmas, hope, lightTags: art, bloom, change, christmas, fire, flowers, hope, lights, poem, Poetry, safety, shells 9 Comments

THE BIRDS OF SUMMER NEVER FLY

Humming like humidity, an urgency to remain.
Strong, like the grain imbedded in my heart.
Seeming to travel, like tiny rivers outwardly.
This aura heaves a sigh.
A steady complacent reply.
To being here, with you.
Easy to be lost in daydreaming.
Washed by the winds that shake nothing, only memories.
The dust in clogged areas of my mind.
God had other plans before.
His little tremors which shook my old world.
Making cracks, scaring the birds.
Now each day stretches in tangerine tenderness.
Dappled by sunshine and summer rains.
Soaking my feathers, lightening my eyes and heart.
To remain, if only for a while, steadies my soul.
Allowing the happiness to travel through the streams within.
Strengthening and undoing in waves all at once.
Migrating to nowhere but now and forever.

01/12/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: birds, happy, summerTags: art, birds, flight, flying, god, happiness, happy, heart, joy, love, migrating, poem, Poetry, soul, summer 2 Comments

Must Be Survival

The past hangs in the air.
Dusty and dangerous.
Tantalising, yet splinter filled.
Bat it like a ball away.
Call it like a cat to stay.
To comfort.
Within the pages lies the secret.
To learn from the end, what the beginning never told.
I wear it now like armour, like decoration.
Little medals of pain and trauma.
Shining in the tomorrow sun.
The scars healed.
Sewn up by tears and terrible nights.
Mended through my own defiance.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
Oh Father, those were my sins.
But that was then, and flesh was paid.
I grew back bones and inclination.
My mind devoured the chance to change.
Now, golden and precious this day; this hour.
Every minute blooms like imperfect flowers.
For nothing matters now but to love and push on.
Because of you.
Because of me.

24/11/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: flower, strength, tomorrowTags: art, beauty, flower, flowers, growth, love, pain, poem, Poetry, skin, strength, sun, survival, tomorrow 12 Comments

Dream now in colour

Clouds collapse as I pass on through.
Padding this prison with colour.
Explosions in my eyes.
Memories shiver out like masturbation.
Leaving residue across my smile.
You were once dark like charcoal.
Crumble to kiss, choking my mind.
Infiltrating the lungs of life.
Returning now, from a trip to your heart.
Licked and loved, reborn into frantic shimmers.
Colours which dance like the sun across a ceiling.
Splintered out through the stained glass of my soul.
Where once I stumbled, I now walk.
Framing these moments that splutter dreams.
Magic and flared, fireworks of indescribable possibilities.
I dream now in colour.
I bury the past in grey.
Living out the future in shocking stains which stay.

15/11/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: colour, dreams, lifeTags: colour, dream, explosion, future, kiss, life, love, mind, poem, Poetry, smile, soul 6 Comments

Set you free

Heavy weight with a soul that’s full.
Yet lifting towards a breaking sky.
Shattered light magnified in diamond eyes.
Sparkle.
Lift.
Goodbye.

15/10/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: diamonds, goodbye, soulTags: art, ascending, diamonds, ending, goodbye, heaven, lift, lifting, pixels, poem, Poetry, sky 5 Comments

Swim

Such kindness has undone me.
Split the seams and spilled my soul.
Out, drifting in the open water.
Like flowers floating on a pond.
With a liquid sky it smothers.
Clinging to petaled feelings of life.
Change coming, in tidal processions.
Little white horses pummelingly abound.
Nothing lies below, but everything.
Hidden and waiting, like a pearl in a clam.
The silence now like my sadness.
Solitary and only for me.
The shores slips away.
Tangerine days fold into each other.
As each island of emotion passes.
I wave but never settle.
Never laying flags on anything that isn’t mine.
And swim, onwards into blues, blue, and blu.
The destination is unknown, yet assured;
it’ll be back where I began.
Gilled and scaled, bleached and regrown.
Like a starfish.
As a shark.
A soul, returning to the ocean above, called home.

11/10/202311/10/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: change, sea, sunTags: art, begin, change, fruit, islands, life, ocean, poem, Poetry, sea, soul, strength, sun, sunshine, swim 3 Comments

Slate

The taste of a thousand histories swallows inside.
Crumbling like chalk and Rome.
The feeling of tomorrow, attacks these eyes.
Penetrating only where I allow.
Letting light and life in once again.
Mistakes sit like marbles.
Orbial reminders of evolution.
As once more I sail around your sphere.
The centre, a vast expanse of grey.
Itching for that etching of our love.
To permeate and christen this new world.
What will grow, is only what we sow.
I’ll toil this tundra, chipping at the rock.
Watering on happy tears.
For in the passing of time.
Our empire will climb, up once more to the heavens.

03/10/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: future, growth, plants, worldTags: art, future, growing, growth, love, plant, poem, Poetry, seed, slate, start, tundra, world 8 Comments

Go to the mountain

Within your mountain clouds, breathing you like vapour.
Looking down, dreaming of that caressing landslide.
Each view, smothers me like the sea.
Within a moment, smashed by the rocks of your intellectualism.
A tumbling lump of sensual debris.
Strewn across your valley.

30/09/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: love, mountain, sexTags: art, breathing, intellect, love, mountain, poem, Poetry, sex, valley 14 Comments

Pull in destruction

Watching the world as the sun descends.
Closing my soul at my grave again.
You are the light on which I feed.
And you are the force that pulls me underneath.

Your smile gets trapped there inside my heart.
A choke of the moment in which to start.
The slow destruction, a dismantling fall.
Love is the reason we live at all.

Blame never scratched into your eyes.
This is my own collapse.
My own demise.

06/08/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: crash, graves, loveTags: art, collapse, endingpainpoetry, fall, falling, hurt, love, lovers, poem 6 Comments

Everything before, then and after

The future tells me how to feel.
Amplified by thoughts of tragic memory.
Divorcing from states of resolve and repair.
Crashing into me like clouds.
All emptiness and Jesus DNA.
Not even there.
Droplets of time that rain upon me like tears.
A miasma of crucifixion crying, caught on the wind.
I’m paralysed by a need to run.
Of that looming fateful horizon.
Escape buried deep in sand.
Turning to glass from circumstance.
What happened as you let me slip.
Confused by the letting go and the careful drip.
Of the darkness that now pools in me.
God is loud like absence.
Mother Mary quiet like convalescence.
A soul, threading through a conscious more aligned to indifference.
Yet reduced, as always.
To regretful ephemeral tears.

30/07/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: clouds, future, godTags: art, change, circumstance, clouds, fate, future, god, jesus, mary, poem, Poetry, tears, world 8 Comments

Liquid gravity

Heavy bones weighted like illuminati.
Dark and porous, prone to fits of flight.
Suspended now in sleep as the moon watches.
Casting an orbous eye over this place.
It came without sound, scooping out the soul.
Lifting it up into that lunar landscape.
The silent soul stealer, the moon dancer of dreams.
To be played with only upon consentation with the darkness.
The body, cast aside while the moths played havoc.
Is that starlight in the blood?
Foreign dust in cells that shake and split.
Do these craters mimic the grief that marks me?
If all this is what I see, what lies beyond the solar scene.
That moon gravity and grey seam of space.
Is it just another place.
For me to plan my escape?

23/07/202324/07/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: gravity, moon, soulTags: art, bones, death, dreams, escape, geavity, health, lunar, moon, planet, poem, Poetry, solar, soul, space Leave a comment

We die in the dark

She knew of course, the dying light.
The creeping shadows.
The bleeding white.
Her soul had threatened her many a time.
A world turned a sunder.
Bleached by holy turpentine.
She had a choice, before her now.
A heaving heart.
A thankless vow.
To go forth strong, one more contradiction.
That the path be easy.
A mind drowned in benediction.
What halo had burned away the pain.
Of apologetic compromises.
Swallowing such shame.
So she bore her bones and looked to the sky.
She prayed for mercy.
Just another gentle crucify.

20/07/202320/07/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: dark, death, holyTags: art, darkness, death, dying, ending, god, holy, light, mantra, poem, Poetry, prayer, vow 4 Comments

Wisdom/Love/Rebirth

Alchemic thoughts on surface skin.
Indentations fill with divine gold.
Sucked from the face of god.
A breath, an angel sigh.
Filling these lungs once again with notions.
With dreams.
Down on my knees, begging to be whole.
And one, with thyself.
Divorced from diluted fears.
Licking the light once more into my heart.
All things known and remembered, lost.
All things new and unknown, valued.
Precious.
A dizzying state, a heaving presence.
The choice, to go on.
After such decomposition and death.

16/07/202316/07/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: god, gold, strengthTags: angels, art, breath, control, death, god, motivation, poem, strength 7 Comments

Glaciers beyond my eyes

Altered states which cling to the walls of my soul.
An inside bark, encasing the underneath.
Cut, and see the rings of my life.
Of this existence.
Petrified and stained by the echoes of ghosts.
These eyes witness the great collapse.
The rebuilding and celebration of all things before.
And after.
A deconstruction of a self that hums in stasis.
Fumbling words to questions no one really asks.
Lips painted and parted.
Moving through headache greys and champagne elation.
Burying a love.
Suffocating a happiness, trapping the beauty and moments.
Now these eyes shift with my vibrating soul.
Moving under their own weight in order to stay in place.
Constantly evolving and expanding.
Yet motionless to others.
Cold to touch.
But beautiful in its inaccessibility.

11/07/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: happy, ice, lifeTags: art, beauty, bury, cold, coldness, death, eyes, glacier, happiness, ice, love, mind, poem, Poetry 6 Comments

Absence and conviction now relevant in the dying light of day

That’s my soul out there.
She cried, watching the snow and the raven feathers covering all the eye could see.
Those creatures beyond had jumped the barricades and made for the glowing mass.
She had begun to fade, peeling away like days off a calendar.
Washed out like turpentine.
Remember us.
I called, as if shouting into the wind; aiming my words now up into the heavens.
The smile faulted, trembling now at the door of the great beyond.
The quiet pressed in and the slashes of existence ripped across my vision.
Her life, now illuminated, and she made to give me her hand.
Nothing, air and absence.
And she was gone.

01/06/202301/06/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: absence, death, departureTags: absence, birds, creatures, death, glow, grief, heaven, life, light, poem, Poetry, ravens, snow, soul 5 Comments

Flowers offered from swans

I woke to find the absence heavy in the air.
Ghosts murmuring while the birds still slept.
Fragipan moments speckling my soul.
The beekeepers and dream shapers always on spinning wheels.
Pulling and pushing at this world.
Coating our eyelids with ashes and honey.
My mother’s requiem now gathers the dust of days.
Marched over like a military parade.
All smiles and weeping.
All promised pain.
The fragile state of existence buckles.
Shattering and reforming the world, and each day, anew.
We pull at the ribbons, tightening to shut.
Closing the wound which spills out dragons and butterflies.
This heart cannot hurt forever.
It will not continue to beat infinitely.
Down to the riverbed, pollute the waters with regret.
Cough out the loss and the bones of pain.
Fill the void once more with flowers.
Go on again.

29/05/202303/10/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, flowers, lossTags: art, death, flowers, future, ghosts, hurt, loss, magic, military, mother, pain, poem, Poetry, swans 7 Comments

Brace for impact

Waiting and forever weeping.
Wallowing by the willows as the moon crashed.
Shattering astral intentions deep into my veins.
As I waited and wondered by the river of eternity.
The shock of the moment rocked us side to side.
Dislodging your mind.
Unhinging my soul.
Letting the worms and the words slither inside.
Unbuttoning my pride and laying my ego to waste.
It hasn’t killed us yet, it hasn’t had time to grow.
But the speed of its corruption, how it does persist.
Splits my cells in fear.
I watch this all from space, safely in my own atmosphere.
Trapped inside a dream.
Now, with far retching chemtrails which tickle the nose of god.
Thwarting any ideas of escape or reason.
It pulls and pushes at me.
Bringing me down.
Papering the fall.
Toppling the monuments that I had built for us all.

23/05/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: crash, moon, spaceTags: astmosphere, astral, blood, crash, death, demise, earth, god, impact, moon, poem, Poetry, space 6 Comments

Ghost

You’d come to stay.
Lifting away emotional boxes heavy with sorrow.
A wreckage of circumstance and bits of dead skin.
Tumbling from shared DNA.
You’d come to stay.
Unfogging the glasses that looked towards tomorrow.
As the walls caved in around us.
Brick dust and reality coating our lungs.
You moved it aside, a place for everything.
And every heart in its right place.
Having been torn away.
You took my hand and calmed my heartbeat.
The shiver was from the cold, nothing more.
Sweet words melted into this moment.
You said you’d stay.
All things fixed, you’d come to find it.
The reason for our pain.
It vanished of course, upon seeing you again.
A visitor hanging there like a family secret.
Precious and ours only.
Praying together, staying forever.
You’d come to stay.
That was what you say.
In my head.

17/05/202317/05/2023 by Mark Ryan Categories: death, ghost, griefTags: art, crazy, death, ghost, grief, loss, mental, mind, poem, Poetry, stay, touch, writing 9 Comments